


All The Voices Seem To Drown Me Out

by ihaveacleverfandomurl



Series: All The Voices [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bullying, Child Abuse, Gen, not this keith/parents relationship, this is just an awfully angsty fic i'm sorry, what is canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 15:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12301911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihaveacleverfandomurl/pseuds/ihaveacleverfandomurl
Summary: They’re in the bedroom, his mother and father. The door is closed, but fear – dark and cold, heavy in Keith’s stomach – is oozing out beneath the door, its counterpart – boiling hot anger that leaves a haze in his head – is soaking through the cracks in the floorboards, tainting the wood. If feelings had a color, Keith is sure he would be standing in a puddle as red as the stains he hasn’t yet managed to scrub from his throbbing face.He should have known better than to open that door. For years afterward, he would wonder if he had just left it closed, if maybe, just maybe, things would have been all right.Keith’s gift for sensing others’ emotions has always spelled trouble for him, but before he met Lance, before he even met Shiro and Matt, it taught him that he could never really trust anyone.





	All The Voices Seem To Drown Me Out

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Bullying, violence, both physical and emotional abuse (from parents & others).  
> Prequel to [All The Voices Seem To Fade When You Are Here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10979442). While it can be read alone, this contains SPOILERS and it’s recommended to read at least to chapter 13 in the main story before reading this!  
> (you do you though boo)  
> Also not required reading in the main storyline (but damn does it clear some shit up)

It’s not uncommon for other kids to push Keith down. They don’t like his probing gaze, his quiet, weird questions that seem to get into the heart of whatever they’re feeling.

Even his teachers hate him. They don’t like how he knows when they’re hiding how tired or bored or irritated they are, it’s unsettling and invasive. So when kids gang up on Keith by the jungle gym at recess, often, the teachers look the other way.

He’s weird, he’s strange, he’s prying into their heads and they all hate him for it.

Sometimes he thinks that he hates himself, too.

Usually they don’t draw blood. They’re all too young and clumsy for that. No one knows how to properly throw a punch yet, how to do lasting damage.

But today is different. Today, Keith isn’t dealing with his usual playground bullies. Yesterday, he asked a blank-faced Susannah Barrett why she was so sad. She’d stared at him, and he’d jolted back as suddenly, from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, her body filled with fury – a slow, heavily hot drip of it until she was red in the face.

“How do you know?” she’d shouted, shoving herself up from her desk. “What do you know, weirdo?!”

Susannah’s grandmother had just died, and nobody was happy with him for dredging it up with his abnormal abilities.

But apparently for Susannah, she was more than unhappy, because the next day as Keith’s head is being ground into the mud at the foot of the swings, a pair of much, much larger feet appear in his field of vision.

Susannah’s older brother is big and mean and built like the football player he’s aiming to be. He’s so angry that Keith can feel himself trembling – something he’s promised himself he’d never do around his bullies. His limbs knock against one another as the kids his age that are sitting on top of him or holding him down realize what’s happening and slowly pull off him, backing up to watch.

Keith is dragged by the back of his dirty shirt, choking him briefly, before he’s on his feet, looking up at all six plus feet and 200-something pounds of Susannah’s brother.

“You’re the freak, aren’t you? Don’t talk to Susannah again.”

The first punch is more of a shock to Keith’s system than anything else. He doesn’t feel the pain, his adrenaline is pumping in his ears. The anger and cruel amusement of the crowd surrounding him acts as a buffer against it, he can almost pretend he’s the one laughing at his own impending demise.

“Don’t touch her.”

Another punch. He feels this one. He feels it wet, sticky, and hot on his face. Stinging metal in his throat. Red on his shirt. He tries to crumple, but catches another hit before he can.

“Don’t even _look_ at her!”

To the stomach. He falls into a ball, back in the mud, trying to make himself as small of a target as possible. The kicks leave the starts of bruises blooming across his back, his ribs and arms and legs. After a while, the onslaught may have physically stopped, Susannah’s brother may have spat on him and left, but Keith still feels the pounding of fists and feet against his body, even as everyone around him drifts away, interest lost.

The teachers don’t go out to get him when the bell rings and everyone files back inside.

He picks himself up after a while. He’s shaking again – or still, maybe, he’s been lost in a haze of pain – and knows that he has to make it home, whether his mom is there or not.

Her car is in the driveway, and he thinks to himself in a daze that he should clean himself up before she sees him, or she’ll be very angry. But he doesn’t get to. She’s in the living room, and she shrieks when he opens the door.

“What the hell have you done, Keith?”

He flinches back, because he was right, she’s angry, it’s bubbling up under her ribs as she jumps up from the couch. He swallows a mixture of saliva and thick blood and doesn’t speak. His trembling has turned into small quakes.

“Oh my god. I’m calling your father. Jesus Christ, Keith.” He looks up at her, and she recoils with a glare. Revulsion rolls off of her. “You’re filthy. Why do you do these things? Don’t think of setting a foot further in this house.”

He’s crouching at the door when she comes back, clutching his knees and staring at his shoes that are crusted with dirt, watching dully as flecks of crimson speckle the floor. His nose is still dripping.

“I’m calling the school. Take off your shoes and dirty clothes and come with me. _Now_ , Keith!”

He tries to muffle wet sniffles – most of it trying to snort up the facet of blood but also burning behind his eyes as he strips down to his underwear and obeys.

She leads him into the laundry room, throwing an old towel at him as she holds her phone to her ear. She tosses his clothes in the machine and starts a tense but quiet conversation with the person on the other end as Keith tries to wipe himself down in the sink. Her words are muffled, but he hears clearly, “He did _what_?”

This, this fury is worse. He jumps as her finger jabs into the washing machine button and it whirs to life next to him, screaming along with the thumping of rage in her stomach, her chest – an echo of it in his now. “Goodbye,” she spits out as she hangs up, and tosses the phone away to whirl on him.

“You did your weird thing again to that girl.” Her eyes glitter dangerously. “Get out. Get dressed.”

He hurries to obey, wondering if he’s supposed to stay in his room when he hears the crackle of the car pulling into the driveway and then the door opening and closing, footsteps.

They’re in the bedroom, his mother and father. The door is closed, but fear – dark and cold, heavy in Keith’s stomach – is oozing out beneath the door, its counterpart – boiling hot anger that leaves a haze in his head – is soaking through the cracks in the floorboards, tainting the wood. If feelings had a color, Keith is sure he would be standing in a puddle as red as the stains he hasn’t yet managed to scrub from his throbbing face.

He should have known better than to open that door. For years afterward, he would wonder if he had just left it closed, if maybe, just maybe, things would have been all right.

A few more years after that, he realized it would have probably fallen apart anyway. His fractured “family” had never been whole, not from the moment Keith’s freakishness had begun to show itself. He’d never had a family of his own. He never would.

Even so, he would regret turning that doorknob.

But now, unknowing, a child, Keith opens the door.

His parents are talking in low voices. His father’s arms are crossed, his mother’s fists are clenched. They turn to stare at him as he peers around the door. It all crashes into him, and he sags against the wood.

“What? What is it?”

“Please don’t be mad,” Keith whimpers. “Please don’t be scared.”

“No. No! I won’t have him in my house anymore!” His mother’s voice is building as Keith backs up step after trembling step. “He’s a freak!”

His father is stalking after him, wrath in his heavy footsteps. Keith’s back hits the washing machine as he steps into the laundry room. It shakes his body as he stares up at the giant man.

“I am not scared of you,” his father hisses, eyes like fire.

Keith knows better, he knows the pounding through his veins is more than simply his own terror, but he stuffs his fist into his mouth to shut himself up.

There’s his mother, at his father’s shoulder, and he looks to her, and now she’s screaming that she won’t have him looking at her, he’s going to look at the ground or close his eyes, he’s some kind of monster staring into her soul and she hates it, she hates him, and he knows she does.

They drag him out to the car, and drive for a very, very long time, and then they leave him. There, alone, with nothing.

And he knows, as he curls himself up into a ball in the dirt on the side of the road, that he can never trust anyone with his secret again.

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: You can now read this oneshot's sequel, [A Little Voice](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12808395), which is Shiro and Matt meeting Keith from Shiro's POV not long after this fic takes place!  
> -  
> ahhh i wrote this so long ago thank god i finally can post it  
> if you haven’t, check out [the main story of this series](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10979442), which will add more context, and also my other All The Voices oneshots!  
> [my creative tumblr](http://kayizcray.tumblr.com) | [my personal tumblr](http://ihaveacleverfandomurl.tumblr.com/)


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